


A Discourse With His Daughter

by Dhobi ki Kutti (dhobikikutti)



Category: Agatha Christie - Poirot series
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Kahvi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhobikikutti/pseuds/Dhobi%20ki%20Kutti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poirot has a conversation with Judith Hastings towards the end of his days. If you are familiar with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtain_(novel)">'Curtain: Poirot's Last Case'</a>, then there will be references to the plot, otherwise, I think the allusions are vague enough to not spoil anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Discourse With His Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kahvi in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge  
> Beta-read by Muccamukk.

"The young have such a precious arrogance about them. It is the young who contain so much innocence that their passion and their heartbreak becomes the whole world. It is not that the elderly cannot love, or even--do not laugh, please--fall in love. After all, it is a bit hypocritical, don't you think, for any young person to grandly profess that they are attracted to their lover for the sake of their beautiful mind, and then turn around and express incredulity when love overcomes wrinkles and a certain pudginess about the waist."

"When you are older, you can recognise that love, sweet though it is, is merely one of the many things that makes life comfortable."

"I see you smiling. No doubt, you think me a very unromantic, fusty old man to use a word like `comfortable' to describe the pangs of love. No doubt Juliet would have felt the same, poor girl. Shakespeare was very hard on the young. Look at Desdemona, or even Miranda. Hardly given a chance to understand what they were getting into! But yes, I am unromantic, if by that you mean that I do not consider death and tragedy to be preferable to a humdrum, useful life. And death is always tragic, whether it separates lovers or unites them."

"I can see what you are thinking. But Judith, my dear child, you must not feel guilty for the relief that you felt when she died. How else can we go on, after all, except by looking for hope wherever we can find it. Come now, did you really think I would have thought it of you? There... there."

"Here. Another thing the young seem perennially in lack of is a clean handkerchief."

"You must not lose faith in Papa Poirot. You have picked up this bad habit from your father. I remember him when he was younger, always fretting and anxious, so eager to_ do_ something. Perhaps it is a British tendency, this need to be part of the action, to feel inadequate if one is helpless. But at least with you I do not have to worry about the effects of red-heads, eh? Your mother gave you that good sense."

"She was very good for him. If you must be foolish about someone, it helps if that someone is wise."

"You will be good for your father too, when this all ends."

"What?"

"I think, my dear child, that you know how. You do know who, don't you?"

"Mon Dieu! No! No. Oh, _mon Cherie_, is that the fear you have been carrying with you all this while? No Judith, that heart you can trust as well as you trust your own. You are both the sort of children we feel proud bequeathing the world to, if you will excuse an old man's sentimentality."

"But, if you will permit, I wish to ascertain why you did not permit yourself to mistrust the person I know you have been uneasy about."

"Yes, that is precisely whom I am talking about. I am glad to see your little gray cells are not as naive as your honourable father's."

"What? A_ homosexual_? Well, yes, I dare say he could be, but how does that signify?"

"Oh, I see. I forget how militantly just and fair the young aspire to be. No, I am not mocking you, Judith. I agree that it is a hard burden to have to hide one's desires from a disapproving society, and that it might affect people to behave in ways that you do well to pity, rather than to scorn, but believe me, this is not one of those cases. In all honesty, I doubt that one has the capacity to have desires that can be shared with another human being, man or woman. Some knots are twisted too tightly to be unravelled. And a mercy it is too. For malice and evil of that sort to have dragged down some other loved one in its fall would have made my task all the more..."

"I suspect you do know what I am going to do. But if you will excuse me, there are some things we old-fashioned folk prefer to acknowledge without a great long furious discussion, and this will be one of them. Consider it a concession to your modern directness--I am frankly telling you to change the subject, without any sort of nonsense regarding the time or the weather."

"Yes, I suppose there are a lot of things we are too prudish to talk about, but..."

"Ah."

"May I commend you, once again, on your perspicacity."

"Is that why you tried to sympathise with... _non, non_, I do not need to be assured I am nothing like him, unlike your dear father, I never had any false modesty to trip me up."

"Well, actually, I do not actually mind talking about it. You are your father's daughter, after all, even though you are so different."

"No, no, there was never anything like that. Really, you young people seem to think sex is the only part of love. No, not even a kiss! Come Judith, do you think I would ever pain him by telling him of something that would only invoke guilt and anxiety in him? Your mother knew, of course, which is, I think, one of the reasons she took him away. She did not want him to feel torn about something that there was no possibility of. It would not have been something he could ever accept in himself, even if he had ever recognised it."

"What do you mean, `but what about me'? You of all people should be able to tell me whether there is not satisfaction and joy in being able to work in the pursuit of a worthwhile cause, with a person you respect and admire, and, yes, love, even if what you share is friendship and companionship, and not anything else."

"Oh, Judith, _mon cherie_. You must not fret over me. When you reach my age you will be able to look at all the joy in your life without concerning yourself about the daydreams that it might have once hurt to let go off, so long ago. I have been happy. And he has always been such a dear, and true, and loyal friend. It is enough of a blessing."

"Tcha! Enough of that. You have your own long, busy life ahead of you, and even in all this evil there is some good. You must not be afraid of seizing it. The good _Dieu_ would not want innocent hearts blighted. And may I, since I am a frail old man who may not be around at a more appropriate time, give you and your upright young man my blessings?"

"I am glad you do not feel embarrassed to admit your feelings. Knowing what you want, and acknowledging it to yourself is such a strength, Judith. Never let go of that. Now your father, he must be pushed, to see it..."

"You will help him, yes? After. I think he has still the capacity to find companionship. He always had a great heart, yes, especially for his odd little friend Poirot. He even forgave me my `Gallic nature', as he so kindly put it. He will miss me, but he will not be wounded, not as was with your mother, and that is a good thing. I will suggest to him, gently, to pay a visit to such and such a person, and he will dutifully go, because it was Poirot's last wish. And from there..."

"Well, you shall see. I leave him in capable hands, Judith. Your family has always taken such good care of him. For his great happiness I am indebted to you."

"Pshaw. It is nothing to cry about. You are much too sensible and modern and scientific to treat it as anything but the simple fact of life that it is."

"Come, now drink up your chocolate before it turns cold completely. You must not offend an old man who has gone through such pains to make it for you, _oui_?"


End file.
